Sabathia finishes fourth in AL Cy Young voting

As expected, Justin Verlander won his first career AL Cy Young Award today, receiving all 28 first place votes. He’s the first Tigers pitcher to win the award since Willie Hernandez won both the Cy and MVP Awards in 1984. Congrats to him.

CC Sabathia finished fourth in the voting (63 points), behind Verlander (196), Jered Weaver (97) and Jamie Shields (66). He finished third in the voting last year, fourth in 2009, and fifth in 2008 after winning it with the Indians in 2007. Mariano Rivera finished eighth in the voting with four fifth place votes, and David Robertson received one lonely fifth place vote.

The full results can be found at BBWAA’s site. Both the AL and NL Manager of the Year Awards will be announced at 2pm ET tomorrow.

Wow. How can the voters not evaluate all information available to them? The voting for these awards is getting rediculous. Got the winner right (cause it was easy), but didn’t bother to look deeply enough at the others to determine who was next most deserving.

http://bleedingyankeeblue.com Jesse

Agreed.

Ed

These results are only ridiculous if you believe FIP and its closely related friend fWAR are the end all, be all of stats.

All 3 pitchers ahead of Sabathia had significantly better ERAs and WHIPs in similar innings totals.

If you value peripheral stats / skillset most, the voting was off. If you value results, they nailed it perfectly, at least for the top 4.

Tom

The results are also ridiculous when you look at the park Weaver pitched in…. His ERA was more than a run better at home and his HR rate was a bit absurd (somewhere around 5% at home thanks to a park that suppresses HR).

He also threw 71 innings against just SEA and OAK… posting an ERA just over 1…. that’s nearly 33% of ALL of his innings.

I’m not a huge proponent of FIP (I think it is more useful for prediction, along with xFIP), but Weavers ERA has a ton of asterisks with it.

Genghis

There seems to be an overemphasis this year on ERA and WHIP, while ignoring park effects completely. It seems to me that in previous years SOs mattered; but that seems to have not figured in this year, which explains the low results for CC.

No need to include Verlander, we all know he’s deserving of winning it.

Cris Pengiucci

First place should have been much closer and could have gone in a different direction. Didn’t look at the stats deeply enough myself.

http://Www.or.ly MeGustaMontero (JM)

Same. I didn’t realize how close it really was/should have been.

Pat D

I’m sorry, but I’m a sportswriter who’s been doing this for 25 years and I see all the games so I can tell who the better pitcher is all the time. What’s with all these math equations you have listed here? What in the sam hell is “e/f/x” and “fWAR.” Are you sure you weren’t looking at your bowl of AlphaBits this morning, you stat geek who still lives with your mother?

/WallyMatt’d
/probably any other sports writer, too’d

http://bleedingyankeeblue.com Jesse

“Are you sure you weren’t looking at your bowl of AlphaBits this morning, you stat geek who still lives with your mother?”

This. This made me laugh.

Soriano is a Liar

I hate LolVerde finishing so high, but to be fair, there is a huge dropoff in points after CC/Shields. It’s not like people gave him first place votes.

Pat D

See my previous post to understand the ridiculousness of it all.

Someone voted him 2nd? Three people voted him 3rd? What fucking idiot writers were they, and what’s their reasoning, other than “he didn’t blow a save?”

Soriano is a Liar

Oh, it’s still insane. It would have just been even more insane if he had gotten like, a legit amount of 1st/2nd place votes on the basis of saves. At least it was only one moron writer that voted him second.

Rainbow Connection

Thanks for bringing clarity and levity to the situation. We’re all to dumb to understand.

Rainbow Connection

*too

Pat D

Clearly, you are. Either that or you simply don’t proofread.

thenamestsam

If I had to guess I’d bet the Valverde second place vote was a Detroit writer who wanted to ensure that Verlander would win, and so rather than give his 2nd place vote to someone deserving who had a better shot at beating Verlander (even if it was always unlikely to matter) he gave it to someone with no chance of winning the thing.

I just can’t believe any writer is stupid enough to think Valverde was the 2nd best pitcher in the league this year.

DERP

At least they got the winner right. Not so sure that will be true for the rest of the awards.

Cris Pengiucci

Maybe they didn’t get the winner right.

MattG

It will be fun to lambaste whomever gave Valverde a second place vote. I assume it is a Detroit writer, and I further assume it would have been a first place vote had Verlander not also been a Tiger.

It’sATarp

What a Joke. CC is second in bWAR and fist in fWAR so how is he in fourth just slightly ahead of the most overrated closer in the league

candyforstalin

13/28 voted for valverde. hahaha.

Jonathan

I guess we haven’t come as far as we thought. WAR isn’t the end all but when you’re first in the AL in WAR and 2nd in MLB and end up 4th in the AL CY Young, something isn’t right. Verlander (7.0 WAR), Weaver (5.6 WAR), Shields (4.9 WAR) and CC (7.1 WAR). Considering Weaver pitches in a pitcher’s park and had a 32.5% GB % last year and got to pitch in a very weak division with 2 of the worst offenses in the game, I’d like to see what his ERA would be in Yankee Stadium and the AL East. Same goes for Verlander. 40.2% GB% in a giant ballpark and in a pathetic offensive division. I’m not saying they aren’t amazing pitchers because they are, but you can’t treat ERA like it doesn’t matter what division and ballpark you pitch in. Roy Halladay for years got hosed in Cy Young voting because he pitched in the toughest division and a hitter’s park…then he moved to the NL. Did he really get that much better as he moved into his mid 30’s? No. And that isn’t even mentioning Valverde…wow.

William

WAR isn’t everything. In fact, by WAR standards, Mariano is the third best CP in baseball. Point proven.

Jonathan

Wow….reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit is it? The second freaking sentence starts with, “WAR isn’t the end all”. Not to mention WAR was only mentioned at the start and most of my argument was based on things completely different than WAR. If you’re going to try and make a dbag response to something you should at least read the original statement or you’ll end up looking like an idiot. Point proven.

Genghis

Maybe he was agreeing with you, and supporting your point. You really need to park your ego by the door if you are going to post– otherwise “you’ll end up looking like an idiot”– point proven. :)

Monteroisdinero

I got Jered. Next year I’ll get Jamie and Justin. Righties mean nothing to me.

/Jesus

JonS

there we go Robertson!! Lets build to this next year…Congrats Houdini

Jumpin’ Jack Swisher

As much as I wish Sabathia (and Nova, for that matter) would have finished higher for their respective awards, arguing that they should have finished second or third is like splitting hairs.

I thought Verlander should win MVP but, in the absence of that, no one was more deserving than he was. Everyone else had a fine year. Where the chips fell from 2-4 doesn’t really matter.